Sex and Taxes

Is taxation consensual? Most believe it is. And the majority view is often correct. Even so, I'll share considerations that might be new to you. They could make a difference when making up your own mind.

Owning something means having the right to determine how it's used and by whom. You are the owner of things you bought or made. And you also own your body. Although it is unusual to talk about it in these terms. Any other person must have your permission if they want to use your body in a certain way. We call this permission consent.

Two people use each other's bodies when they have sex. There should be no doubt that both parties are consenting. What about consent in your relationship with the government? The government instructs you to pay taxes. If you don't respond, fees get added. If you ignore the fees for long enough, agents take you and lock you up. If you don't cooperate, they use force to drag you away. If you defend yourself with enough strength, they kill you. That ultimate threat of deadly force is crucial to the system of taxation. Without it, you could safely ignore the government's commands.

So the government threatens violence against you to get you to pay. It is possible that you've consented to this use of your body as a penalty for non-payment of taxes. Let's examine that possibility. You haven't explicitly consented, but some say that you implicitly consent when you use government-provided services. Does that make sense?

Imagine you're abducted by bandits. They lock you in an antique chest. Each day they push a bowl of mushroom soup through a hatch. Does your acceptance of the soup mean you consent to remain locked in the chest? If a person reasonably believes a scheme will be imposed on him anyway, he does not consent to that scheme by accepting benefits. You know the bandits won't let you out even if you reject the soup, so you do not consent to remain locked up by eating it.

The same principle applies to your situation as a taxpayer. You know the government will impose taxation on you anyway. So you are not consenting to it when you use government services. But the owner of a place does get to set rules for others who use it. If the government owns the land, it's possible that you consent to taxation by staying there. The government acts like it owns the land, but in most cases, the state took it from other people who were there first. Or simply declared itself to be the owner of unused areas.

We don't accept that private persons become legitimate owners by these means, and it's not clear why the state should be held to a different standard. It seems that the government depends on threats of violence to collect taxes. But you haven't consented to this arrangement. You didn't give explicit consent. And you didn't give implicit consent. Because you're subject to unconditional imposition. You accept benefits in the knowledge that the government will impose taxation on you anyway. And the government doesn't really own the land.

Which means it has no right to set the terms of its use. At best, it's unclear that you consent to the government taxing you. With sex, we are precise about consent. There are all kinds of things we believe do not count as sexual consent. Because taxation depends on threats of deadly violence, our standard for determining taxational consent should be even higher.